The Sound of Music

Post navigation

Two poets stand out in my mind as carrying a tradition that took root in the Sixties through subsequent decades and into the new millennium. Some call it Meat, some Confessional, but those labels are not big enough to cover this breed of poetry, and so I’ll leave it nameless. It’s a poetry that connects more with the Beats than the Sixties, but stripped of the baggage of ideology and formalized spiritual quest that saddles much of Beat poetry; its language is lean and sharp and drills into everyday life, surfacing with nuggets of uncut truth that melt away if you try to incorporate them into something “bigger”. The Mimeo Revolution was the vehicle that carried this poetry through the Sixties and early Seventies; after that, it was pretty much on its own. The poets I’m talking about are Albert Huffstickler, who died in February of 2002, and Mark Hartenbach, who carries on. — John BennettContinue reading →